Blogs I Like

June 01, 2008

Let's Make Today Thanksgiving

Sometimes I get all sad if the show I am watching on TIVO catches up to real time and then I have to watch the rest of it live and with the commercials. After seeing this article I am considering redefining my definition of sad.

Woman in iron lung dies during power outage

"For the first time in more than half a century, the Odell residence is quiet. There are no squeaks and pops from the electric motor that powered an "iron lung" pumping air in and out of Dianne Odell's body.

A
thunderstorm knocked out the power to her home Wednesday, shutting
off the massive metal machine that had helped her breathe for nearly 60
years. It was about 3 a.m. when the electricity went out at Odell's home in
Jackson, a small Tennessee town about 90 miles northeast of Memphis. An
emergency generator did not start, and Odell died as her father and
brother-in-law took turns pumping the iron lung manually.

Dianne Odell, 61, was believed to be the nation's oldest survivor of
polio to have spent almost all of her life inside an iron lung. She had been confined within the 7-foot-long, 750-pound machine ever
since she was paralyzed at the age of 3 by bulbospinal polio. That was
in 1950, just a few years before a polio vaccine was discovered..."

They work by producing pressure on the lungs that causes them to expand
and contract.

Its first use was on October 12, 1928 at Children's Hospital, Boston on a child unconscious from respiratory failure.

Only about 30
people still use them in the United States.

Ironically, Iron Mandoesn't use one.

P.S. Sorry for the death in yesterday's post followed by more death in today's post. I'll look for something peppy or funny or something for tomorrow.

P.P.S. Thanks to whoever linked one of my posts to Stumble Upon last week. I got a lot of new traffic out of that and you gave me the idea to add a button on the bottom of my posts to make it easier to submit anything you like to Stumble Upon or Digg or wherever you like.

This is a sad story, but my co-workers all agreed - if any one of us had to be in an iron lung, just give us the magic juice. kill me. to be trapped in a cylinder for 60 years is more of a tragedy to me.

Hi. Yes, sad indeed. This happened not far from my home (2 hours away) and we here in Tennessee have been asking several questions: 1.) Why didn't they have a back-up for the back-up generator? And B.) Even in Tennessee, we have 911. Anybody think to call? By the way, you can still be sad when you TiVO catches up.

WOW I normally would say who needs this? This time however I aplaude you my friend, this would have been the most interesting person to interview to see what she felt about being stuck in an object and only experiencing the world through a mirror or tv. I would love to do the autopsy on her.